26 Peng's next trick He single-handedly changed the Singapore boutique hotel
scene with his Hotel 1929, Wanderlust and New Majestic properties.
Then came Town Hall Hotel in London's revitalised Bethnal Green.
And now, Irish-born Singapore lawyer-turned-hotelier Loh Lik Peng
has set his sights on London's W1, with his Unlisted
Collection taking over Fergus Henderson's St John Hotel site in
Soho this month. And then what? The Unlisted Collection will open
its first Sydney hotel in 2014. Watch this space.

27 Best use of a kitchen with no electricity We tipped our hat to Tulum in the 2012 Hot 100, and the
appetite for this Riviera Maya hotspot shows no sign of waning. The
single most enticing reason to get thee to Tulum right now? Hartwood, the
open-air restaurant that operates without electric power (solar
panels keep it going) and adheres to a strictly local and
sustainable ethos. Yes, that means almost everything is cooked over
flame, with spectacular results. Learn all about it at the upcoming
Oh! Food Workshop, a collaboration between Hartwood and Casa de las
Olas, a green guesthouse by the beach at Tulum. The festival
runs from 24 to 29 May.

28 The dream team It's time to think about moving to Alexandria, and never
mind if you live on the other side of the country or globe. The
inner-city Sydney suburb is now home to Cipro, a new
Italian eatery from some of the Rockpool group's most respected
alumni. Veteran Bar & Grill head chef Khan Danis, pastry chef
Catherine Adams, chef Angel Fernandez and manager Penny
Watson-Green are the faces you'll find presiding over this
decidedly casual venture. Pizza al taglio will be a feature, says
Adams, but the food will be driven more by what's at the market
than any strict allegiance to Naples or Rome. Expect the likes of
braised peas on pizza at breakfast, pizza with smoky eggplant with
mint, preserved lemon and feta at lunch, pork meatballs at dinner,
plenty of antipasti and grills, and passionfruit-pavlova gelato for
afters. We'll see you there.

29 Most ambitious emirate All eyes are on Abu Dhabi, which is vying for the crown
of most dazzling emirate in this luxury-obsessed corner of the
world. Most of the attention revolves around the unveiling of the
planned cultural precinct on starchitect-studded Saadiyat Island -
outposts of the Louvre and the Guggenheim are set to open in the
next couple of years - but the hotel scene is also white-hot. In
August, The St Regis will unveil an audacious new property (its
second in Abu Dhabi) on the top floors of Nation Towers, twin
skyscrapers joined by a bridge containing a luxe suite with views
over the Arabian Gulf. The new Sofitel, meanwhile, is also situated
on the glamorous Corniche, the winding road that hugs the coast:
its French-leaning clientele grazes on mezze and smokes shisha, the
traditional water pipe, at the pool bar. Look for more French
greatness in 2015, when Paris's legendary Le Bristol comes to the
desert. Also on the horizon: the 235,000-square-metre Yas Mall, in
the same development as the élite Yas Viceroy. When the mega-mall
opens in December, it will contain a whopping 500 stores - now
that's what we call giving Dubai a run for its money.

30 Pop-up urban wineries
For two years in a row now, grape-treader David Bowley has set up
a mini urban winery in a courtyard in Adelaide's CBD. This year,
visitors also enjoyed tacos from the pop-up Little Miss Mexico
cantina as they feasted on the sight of Bowley up to his jocks in
fermenting shiraz. In Sydney, meanwhile, winemaker Tom Munro
fermented some pinot noir grapes from Mt Majura vineyard in the ACT
at the Bellevue Hill Bottle Shop in the city's eastern suburbs.

31 Adelaide bars to blossom Finally, the tables are starting to turn. The South
Australian government has relaxed licensing laws in the Adelaide
CBD, making it much easier to open small drinking venues. This
could be the year Australia's city of wine gets to jump on the
small-funky-wine-bar wagon that's proved such a hit in the other
capitals.

32 Wine-only bars Speaking of Adelaide wine bars, Cantina
Sociale is rekindling the vibe of 1980s wine-merchant tasting
rooms on Sturt Street with juice siphoned straight from the barrel.
Winemaker Justin Lane opened this 40-seat city cellar door to pour
his own eclectic wines as well as barrels from other boutique
producers, with tapas to graze on.

33 Best bet out westCrown
Perth's renaissance continues to stack the odds in guests'
favour. The casino's latest opening of note is La Vie, an opulent
art deco-styled Champagne bar that follows in the Gallic footsteps
of Guillaume Brahimi's newish Bistro Guillaume. While nothing says
"party" quite like '82 Krug or a magnum of '93 Dom, smart cocktails
and canapés are on hand at La Vie for less hedonistic moments.
Travellers will also be pleased to hear that construction of
Perth's Crown Towers is under way, with the $568-million six-star
hotel on track for completion in 2016.

34 Best bet out west marque II Since opening in September, Print Hall, with
its four storeys of eating and drinking, has fast won over locals.
Whether it's breakfast at on-site coffee roastery and bakery Small
Print or an expenses-be-damned dinner in the dining room, this
inner-city food and drink precinct lives up to its considerable
hype.

35 The big Balinese bonanza Our favourite Indonesian island is firing on several
fronts ahead of this year's APEC summit, with an airport
redevelopment due to open in August (not a moment too soon), new
roads to ease congestion in the island's south, and $2 million
worth of landscaping to pretty the place up. There's also a host of
new hotels at the top end of town, including the all-suite Regent
Bali resort on the Sanur beachfront, and Double-Six at Seminyak,
where Sydney chef Robert Marchetti (North Bondi Italian, Gowings
Bar & Grill) will direct the hotel's restaurants and rooftop
cocktail bar. The Sofitel Bali Nusa Dua will open its 415 rooms by
September, in time to receive APEC delegates, but Philippe Starck's
high-concept villa hotel The Stairs won't make its début in
Seminyak until 2014. The family-friendly Le Méridien has already
opened for business beside the seafood diners at Jimbaran Beach,
while on Petitenget in Seminyak you'll find the petite L Hotel, an
urban oasis with teppanyaki and tandoori on the menu. The big news
in Ubud is the overdue arrival of the 107-room Westin Ubud Resort
& Spa, expected to welcome its first guests by year's end.

In the round
From left: former Berta manager Kristen Allan, former Vini chef Dan Johnston and The Eat In floor manager Tom Merryweather are among Full Circle’s members.

36 Vine design Wine bottle labels become screenplay vignettes in the
hands of Dom Roberts and James Brown at their Adelaide design
studio, Mash. Commissioned to make an impact, Mash's
striking designs for Two Hands, Changing Lanes, Alpha Box &
Dice, Killibinbin and Jacob's Creek Moscato combine sophistication
and intrigue. Having obtained international winery clients, from
Linnaea in the Napa Valley to Le Grappin in Burgundy, Mash keeps
pushing its ideas further, from sandblasting etched labels into
bottles to using lenticular printing technology.

37 Buggin' out There's never been a better time to add insects to your
culinary repertoire. Bug-loving South East Asian and Latin American
cuisines are on the ascendant, and earth-conscious chefs are also
looking to them as a green source of protein. Following a
bug-centric Chinese New Year banquet, Kylie Kwong now offers
insect-enriched specials at Billy Kwong - hello stir-fried crickets,
ni hao mealworm cakes - while Mexican favourite El Topo in
Bondi Junction offers crisp crickets with chilli and garlic as a
bar snack. Tequila!

38 Vermouth bowls us over Yes, you could use Gilles Lapalus's and Shaun Byrne's
extraordinary Maideniirange of vermouths to mix some killer
cocktails (the sweet vermouth makes a stunning Negroni), but
they're so good, so complex and so uniquely Australian - a third of
the 30-plus botanicals are sourced locally - that they make for
great drinking on their own, unadorned.

39 Provenance Growers It's beautiful to look at, especially the Farm Gate salad
mix, an ever-changing mélange of leaves and flowers that might
include dark-purple shiso leaves, chickweed, miner's lettuce,
borage, and radish flowers, but the real allure of Paulette
Whitney's Provenance Growers edible flowers and
greens is their flavour. No one else seems able to coax so much
intensity from a simple leaf or petal as Whitney can from what she
grows in her garden on the lower slopes of Mount Wellington,
outside Hobart. There are vegetables too, most recently equally
beautiful tiny Mexican sour gherkins, heirloom zucchini and
tomatillos. She has a stall at Hobart's Farm Gate Market on
Sundays.

40 Taking off takes off Pioneering explorer Ernest Shackleton spent two Antarctic
winters living beneath upturned lifeboats to survive the ferocity
of the South Pole's climate. Englishman Frederick Selous was one of
Africa's great white sons, a revered hunter and gentleman
philosopher in his adopted homeland. The feats of these two men
inspired the Shackleton & Selous Society, a new
invitation-only group that has partnered with Leading Hotels of the
World to take guests to some of the last wild places on earth. Its
arrival reflects one of the biggest trends to emerge already in
2013: that of raising the bar even higher for seen-it-all
travellers. Abercrombie & Kent has reintroduced
its private jet safari, exploring the length of Africa via Boeing
737 with Geoffrey Kent as your guide to the Serengeti. And our
own Bill Peach Journeys, a longtime leader of
private-plane travel, has added a Brisbane pick-up to its 12-day
Great Australian Aircruise and a new Australian circumnavigation
option, such is the demand for its private jet itineraries.

41 Con's World of Entertainment The Con Christopoulos-led takeover of Melbourne's Spring
Street continues apace with the opening of Spring St
Grocery, a grocery store, panini bar and cheese cellar. It
follows the opening of the superb marble-lined Gelateria Primavera
over the summer in which maestro Massimo Bidin creates up to 10
milk-based gelati and six sorbetti each day. How does coconut
gelato with dulce de leche swirl grab you? Or goat's curd with pear
and walnut?

42 Too many cooks The cult cook's cookbook of the moment, Too Many
Chiefs Only One Indian, British chef Sat Bains's magnus opus,
is reverent of the hard yards in the kitchen, but thoroughly
irreverent (and indeed sometimes profane) when it comes to just
about everything else. Bracing stuff. It's $152 including shipping,
fromfacepublications.com.

43 The next great travel revolution Given the success of the short-term home rental
revolution spearheaded by airbnb.com, it's no surprise that we're
now all wondering what else we can sell, rent or exchange with each
other. Enter peer-to-peer travel, in which travellers use social
media to procure everything from a loaner bike to a coffee date
with a local in an unfamiliar city and bespoke walking tours. Sites
such as forkly.com provide dining recommendations
by local "tastemakers" in your city of choice, andhomeexchange.com allows travellers to swap
houses. As for campinmygarden.comand parkatmyhouse.com - we'll let you work it
out.

44 The new al dente
It's easy to overcook pasta; not so simple to serve it crunchy and
chewy, and even harder to convince people it's not undercooked.
Rinaldo Di Stasio is on the case with the spaghettone at Bar Di
Stasio serving to convince people to "leave their sloppy pasta
favourites behind and recognise the true beauty of a crunchy,
mouthfilling, flavoursome spaghetti or bucatini".

45 Redfern now Newtown has been on the way up for some time culinarily
speaking, and now its near neighbours in inner-city Sydney,
Chippendale, Redfern and Marrickville, are lighting up the radars
of eaters and bon viveurs. Redfern bar Arcadia Liquors, Chippo
bakery café Brickfields and pop-up The Eat In have drawn interest
from well beyond the tattoo-and-facial-hair set, and Ester, the new
project from team Vini, opening this winter, is the one to
watch.

46 The whirl from Ipanema Things are heating up in Rio de Janeiro. The city's
Maracaña stadium will become the epicentre of world football next
year when Brazil hosts the 20th FIFA World Cup, a nice little
warm-up event for the Rio Olympics in 2016. Showing a sense of
timing to match its impeccable style is the storied Copacabana
Palace hotel, which is open again following a makeover
that ensures the 90-year-old landmark will look its best from any
camera angle.

47 The origin of sweeties What happens when a Margaret River winemaker gets his
hands on a king's ransom of archaic chocolate-making equipment? If
we're lucky, something likeBahen & Co, a range of single-estate,
single-origin and blended chocolates that prove terroir is just as
important in cacao plantations as it is in vineyards. Chocolate
cravings will never be the same again.

48 This year's spirit to watch Ron. Rhum. Nelson's blood. Answering to different names
the world over, rum is arguably mankind's most diverse spirit,
thanks in no small part to the absence of any universal production
regulations. Translation: a wondrous miscellany of spirits, from
tarry, gutsy Trinidadian expressions to delicate, grassy Okinawan
and Thai agricole rums (yes, really) distilled from fresh sugarcane
juice. See you at the bar.

49 Mirage resort As fairytale Indian forts go, Alila Fort
Bishangarh tops the swoon scale. The 230-year-old
pink-stone fortress atop a granite tor in the Aravalli Hills of
Rajasthan is about to be reborn as an extraordinary 59-suite hotel
with distinctly Mughal accents. The resort crowns and extends the
original fort, supplanting arrow slits and turrets with bay windows
and daybeds.

50 Si, David If you dig David Coomer's tapas bar, Pata Negra, the odds
are good you'll like Xarcuteria. A joint venture between the Perth
food patriarch and former Star Anise offsiders Adam Willie and Anna
Campos, this handsomely stocked Spanish deli sports a dazzling
assortment of smallgoods, Spanish cheeses, paella pans and some of
the most satisfying bocadillos this side of MoVida.